Simmel's Concept Of Money Analysis

This paper will describe and critically evaluate Simmel’s concept of money as a crucial feature of social life. In particular, to show how the concept and value of money has changed over time, an historical and sociological context will be taken into consideration. Thus, the analysis of how society conceived money economy in the past, and of how money is conceived in the present instead, will demonstrate also an awareness of the development of sociology as a discipline itself. In addition, the sociologist’s concept of “blasé attitude” will also be discussed in order to further explain what specific changes money caused to society, according to Simmel. Moreover, the paper will assess, with a critical perspective, these theoretical and sociological …show more content…
Indeed, as briefly explained above, this new attitude was characterised by apathy, disinterest, as well as indifference and lack of attention to people. With all the increasing stimuli that cities offer in modern life, people seem to require a kind of cognitive detachment from others to stay sane in an ever changing environment. However, this leads human beings to stop looking at other people like fully rounded and complex individuals with their own existence. In other words, Simmel’s blasé attitude entails that people become perhaps more self-centred because they are not intrinsically interested in how the real and full character of others is, even though people keep encountering each other on a daily basis. In fact, although individuals acquired freedom and individuality in modernity, they also and more importantly developed a disinterested nature that is not concerned with how other characters and personalities may or may not be. In addition, to notice how many people increasingly start to walk about in city streets with headphones in their ears may be useful in order to provide a contemporary example of how the blasé attitude can be applied nowadays. Arguably, if one thinks carefully about it, one may conceive that people with their headphones on are clearly sending to others the message that they do not want to be bothered. Actually, many people who put their headphones on want to isolate themselves from the rest of the world: they do not want to hear noises and do not want to interact, as well as eventually ignoring what is happening around them. Evidently, one single gesture, such as the one of wearing headphones, can have the commonly understood and shared meaning of being an automatic barrier between an individual and society. The reason for this is that, if